Chapter 140 – Provocation (4)
Translator: Seven
Editor: Ana_Banana
An hour before the start of the dungeon attack could be called the time when the players’ tension had reached its peak.
From this point on it was virtually impossible for them to give up their admission into the dungeon.
Of course, if they were to crawl on their knees and beg with tears in their eyes and snot running down their face, they would be able to leave, but the players who were able to apply to enter an A+ rank dungeon would rather die in the dungeon than do something like that.
It was at this critical moment that Kim Woo-jin had released a piece of news that was like a bomb.
This was the time when the players’ tension had reached the peak and they were beginning to sharpen their focus.
[Isaac Ivanov has offered a legendary item as a prize!]
[The legendary item turns out to be Wilhelm Tell’s Crossbow!]
Therefore the power of Kim Woo-jin’s explosive news was bound to have an even more destructive effect. (TL: tactical nuke)
The media and public were immediately filled with turmoil.
“Isaac Ivanov set off a bomb!”
“Is there any data on Wilhelm Tell’s Crossbow?”
“I want an exclusive with Isaac Ivanov!”
“What nonsense are you saying? There’s less than an hour till the dungeon attack! The dungeon attack is the main thing!”
Faced with such an overwhelming situation, the media officials showed that they were unable to prioritize what was truly important.
-Isaac Ivanov called(1).
-King Arthur’s Ring, Wilhelm Tell’s Crossbow?
-Then shouldn’t the other guilds also take out their legendaries?
-They have to bring them out. If they’re scared then they can just roll away.
Public opinion began to burn hotter because of this sudden situation.
Of course, the ones who were feeling the worst were the nine guilds, including the Great One Guild who were partic.i.p.ating in the attack.
They were forced to panic for a moment in the face of this ridiculous situation.
The shock of the situation even affected Oh Se-chan’s office.
“M-, Mr. Kim Woo-jin just offered the legendary item.”
One employee who was monitoring the situation in real time, informed the rest with a trembling voice.
Of course, everyone was shocked by the news.
Only Oh Se-chan had a different reaction.
“Such an amazing guy.”
Instead, he nodded his head as if he had expected such a situation.
“You knew about this?”
Noticing this, a subordinate immediately asked him a question.
“Mhm.”
Then why didn’t he tell his staff when he knew about it from the start?
His staff all had expressions saying that they thought this question, but no one decided to ask it in the end.
“What’s the aim?”
The most important thing right now wasn’t why he didn’t tell them about something so shocking, instead it was to find out the reason for it.
Oh Se-chan calmly answered the question.
“The first goal is to increase the pot(2).”
“Pot?”
“You don’t get it? This is a game of poker where the Great One Guild made a bet and Kim Woo-jin called it. Do you think those other guys will be able to stay out of it? And that the public wouldn’t have any reaction if they did?”
After saying that, Oh Se-chan let out a laugh.
“Naturally the players will notice that the stakes are getting higher as they’re about to attack the dungeon.”
“What will change when they notice?”
“The players who are partic.i.p.ating in the Forest of the Dead dungeon attack this time are all psychos.”
“Psycho?”
“That’s right, by the standards of the public, they all already have a large amount of money and fame, yet they still chose to partic.i.p.ate in this dangerous dungeon. What would they do if the prize increased to two legendary items instead of one?”
“They would somehow try to be the ones who managed to kill the final boss in the dungeon.”
“Right, they would compete even more fiercely with their compet.i.tors. So what would they do to win that compet.i.tion?”
“Race from the start?”
Oh Se-chan nodded at the answer from his subordinate.
“The agreement stated that those who were the most active in the dungeon would be given priority to hunt the boss monster.”
Before the dungeon attack, the first thing that the 9 partic.i.p.ating guilds agreed on was the sequence to attack the boss monster. They agreed to determine this sequence according to the level of activity during the first and second floors of the dungeon.
What was important here was their activity was relative.
If a person decided to suddenly sprint forward with all his strength, then the other would have no choice but to follow him.
“Everyone would have no choice but to reveal their hidden cards from the very first floor.”
In order to survive a compet.i.tion that began like that, they would naturally have to take out what they had been hiding.
“The same is true for the Great One Guild.”
Among them, Kim Woo-jin was aiming to check the trump cards of the Great One Guild.
Of course, there was one more important part to all of this.
“But if he’s wrong wouldn’t that mean he was just throwing away a legendary item?”
Would Kim Woo-jin be able to hunt the boss monster of this dungeon while facing off against so many strong compet.i.tors?
Oh Se-chan laughed at his question.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a problem if Isaac Ivanov summoned double the skeletons that the guilds knew he could. Would it?”
…
[To move on to the next floor, slay 22,222 monsters.]
In a grey forest filled with fog, a notification announced to the players the conditions to move on to the next floor.
It was a distant objective.
However, there were no signs of frustration or surprise in the eyes of the players who had just received such an arduous task.
Rather it seemed like the eyes of those gathered became colder.
“Then move as we agreed before.”
In that coldness, a Frontier Guild member pointed in a direction as he said those words.
“We will go east.”
As soon as he said that, the 23 players from the Frontier Guild headed towards the east.
“We’ll head west.”
Next was the Messiah Guild.
22 players from the Messiah Guild headed west without hesitation.
Following that, the other players began moving in the directions that they had agreed to before entering the dungeon.
That was all.
There was no conversation.
However, it wasn’t hard for them to figure out what the others were thinking.
Roar!
Everyone became scattered in all directions, and before long, the sounds of fighting could be heard from all directions.
“It seems everyone is racing from the beginning.”
Hearing the sounds, Jackson, a player from the Great One Guild’s team, turned to ask a question to a blonde woman with pure white skin.
“What should we do?”
He was instead given a bright smile and another question.
“What do you guys want to do?”
When the members of the Great One Guild heard this question, they also gave bright smiles.
These smiles were the answers.
They’d be happy to take part in this race where everyone was sprinting at full force from the start.
“Right, then we can’t just sit here while the others around us are running.”
Ellis Highton also had the same answer as her subordinates.
“Inventory.”
After she opened her inventory window, she put her hand, upon which was a golden ring, into it.
Then she immediately pulled out a staff made from rough wood out of her inventory.
It was a roughly hewn staff with a turquoise gem embedded in the top.
As soon as the staff appeared, the color of her eyes began to change into a turquoise color that resembled the gem on the staff.
Following such a change, a notification sounded in her ear.
[Merlin’s Staff has increased your magic power.]
[King Arthur’s Ring makes the effects of Round Table items stronger.]
[Your magic power is filled and overflowing.]
Merlin’s Staff and King Arthur’s Ring.
This was the source of the Great One Guild’s confidence.
It was a well deserved source.
“We don’t need to wait for the second floor, let’s show them the difference between us here on the first floor.”
The halo of Ellis Highton, the woman who was currently wielding two powerful legendary items, was the Listener of All Creation, which made her a Spiritualist. This meant that as long as her magic power was enough, she would be able to display destructive power that those mages who had the Keeper of the Knowledge Fountain as their halo could never hope to compare to.
Moreover, she was not just a Spiritualist, but also the successor of Trinity who was known for using spirits of fire and ice in harmony.
“This is the strongest combination in this dungeon.”
Giving her never ending magic power would be the equivalent to installing a cheat in the eyes of the other players.
“Then should we hunt only 10,000?”
So she didn’t care about any of the others.
And the same was true for the other members of the Great One Guild’s team.
“Yes.”
“We should just hunt 20,000.”
There was no reason for them to care about their ‘compet.i.tion’ when they were supercars in different weight cla.s.ses.
Of course, there was something they didn’t know.
Near to them was something covered in a Desert Chameleon Cloak and looking at them with golden eyes.
…
‘Merlin’s Staff.’
Kim Woo-jin who saw the scene through the Grim Reaper’s Mask narrowed his golden eyes slightly.
[Horus’s eyes have closed.]
When he opened his eyes again, their color had returned to normal.
However, his eyes were a bit colder than normal.
‘Well, their confidence is warranted.’
They were bound to be cold.
‘Because Merlin’s Staff and King Arthur’s Ring are…it’s hard for even players on the sixth floor to handle.’
Merlin’s Staff and King Arthur’s Ring.
These were two of the top ten items among the round table series in Kim Woo-jin’s memory.
Furthermore, the two items had a synergistic effect on each other.
To be precise, one of the effects of King Arthur’s Ring was to enhance the weapons in the Knights of Round Table series.
‘But how does Ellis have Merlin’s Staff?’
But the thing that made Kim Woo-jin’s gaze so cold was the fact that Ellis Highton had Merlin’s Staff in the first place.
‘Didn’t Park s.h.i.+n-hye own it from the start?’
In Kim Woo-jin’s memory, Merlin’s Staff had always been an item owned by Park s.h.i.+n-hye.
No, it was because she had Merlin’s Staff that she had such influence on the Knights of Round Table.
‘It seems she’s reached out to the Great One Guild.’
In other words, there was a point of contact between the Messiah Guild and the Great One Guild that could not be ignored.
It seemed that the Messiah Guild also had some influence in this situation.
‘Not bad.’
From Kim Woo-jin’s perspective, this was actually an unexpected opportunity.
This was not strange nonsense.
‘If I take Merlin’s Staff here then there will be no way for Park s.h.i.+n-hye to influence the Knights of Round Table members in the future.’
As was mentioned earlier, Park s.h.i.+n-hye was a member of the Knights of Round Table group and supported the group with Merlin’s Staff.
So what would happen if Merlin’s Staff ended up in Kim Woo-jin’s hands?
It meant that it would be impossible for the Messiah Guild to control the Knights of the Round Table.
‘If I only got a tail last time, then this time I will cut off a finger.’
The resulting blow would be much more powerful than any of the other attacks that Kim Woo-jin had launched against the Messiah Guild.
‘I’ll need to get it in this dungeon somehow.’
Then Lee Jin-ah walked up to him and said.
“What do you want to do? The other guys are hunting monsters without looking back. Do we need to make a plan?”
The remark reminded Kim Woo-jin of his original plan.
Originally, Kim Woo-jin was intending to watch the situation on the first floor.
His goal was to figure out where the confidence of the Great One Guild and the other guilds came from while hunting the monsters in moderation.
He had no intention of sprinting.
Furthermore, he felt that although the Great One Guild was so confident that there was no chance that they would be able to defeat the Dullahan so he’d felt that he would be able to kill it even without having priority over hunting the boss monster.
‘Merlin’s Staff and King Arthur’s Ring are enough to defeat Dullahan.’
But now, from what Kim Woo-jin had seen, the Great One Guild had enough power to defeat the boss monster.
‘I’ll need to get the priority.’
In other words, Kim Woo-jin needed to grab the priority to hunt the Dullahan first.
“We’re changing the plan.”
Therefore he had no choice but to change the plan.
“Change?”
“Let’s sweep all the monsters on the first floor.”
Kim Woo-jin was also prepared to sprint.
Lee Jin-ah clenched his fist when he heard this.
“Right, that’s how a man should be.”
Lee Jin-ah, who was always complaining did not want to lose.
“The legend of the Immortal King Lee Jin-ah, starts today.”
Kim Woo-jin turned to Lee Jin-ah who was drawing his grand plan and said.
“We’ll hunt 10,000 monsters on the first floor.”
“Right, we’ll hunt 10,000…huh?”
Lee Jin-ah, who felt that he’d said something strange, suddenly stopped.
“The quest is to hunt 22,000 and you want to hunt 10,000? Didn’t you calculate something wrong?”
“We’ll hunt 10,000 on the first floor and bet against the Great One Guild on the second floor.”
Faced with the question, Kim Woo-jin explained his plan instead of answering.
“Bet on the second floor? What the h.e.l.l do you mean?”
Only then did Kim Woo-jin answer.
“We’ll bet on an item.”
“W-, wait. Will they agree to that?”
“That’s why we have to provoke them.”
“Provoke?”
Kim Woo-jin answered Lee Jin-ah’s question.
“What the most annoying situation for a guy who’s driving a supercar car down the road?”
“Being overtaken…ah!”
Only then did Lee Jin-ah understand Kim Woo-jin’s intentions.
“I kinda understand…but is that even possible?”
He understood, which was why he questioned it.
No matter how good Kim Woo-jin was, it didn’t easy for him to overtake the Great One Guild by himself.
Kim Woo-jin only had one thing to say to that.
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll make it work.”
Along with those words, Kim Woo-jin took a wooden s.h.i.+eld from his inventory and threw it to Lee Jin-ah.
It was the Boars’ s.h.i.+eld, a legendary item that Kim Woo-jin had gotten from Park Yong-wan.
“This? Isn’t this the Boars’ s.h.i.+eld? Why are you giving this to me?”
Lee Jin-ah, who received the s.h.i.+eld and asked that question, frowned when he realised something,
“You’re not telling me to lure all the monsters are you?”
Kim Woo-jin nodded as though he was satisfied by his understanding.
“Now you’re getting it.”
“…f.u.c.k.”
(Note:
1. Call is a poker term that means to put an amount of money equal to the most recent bet or raise into the pot.
2. The pot in poker refers to the sum of money that players wager during a single hand or game.
Before I was just using standard game terms like ‘board’ but the author specifically used poker terms this time so I switched to those as well